Category Archives: Crop Circles

Crop Circles

A PLEA TO THE POWERS THAT BE

My movie, finally called What on Earth?, with the tag line, “Inside the crop circle mystery,” is finished and getting it sold has begun. We got off to a great start with a preview at the big yearly UFO Congress bash, where we won best feature documentary in their film festival.

dc4000152

The statue, that looks like Oscar, is in fact an alien! Happy that crop circles are considered by them to be interchangeable with crafts, as far as unidentified is concerned, so that the film could be eligible for this award. And it has stimulated my already keen imagination about ‘the other,’ and how backwards our world is on this subject, where instead of marginalizing it we should be investigating it.

I submitted this question to the Obama forum that was held today:

If we ascertained that UFOs or crop circles were coming from another intelligence, we would be one humanity in relation to “the other,” which would enable us to best address all the challenges that face us. It is possible that the only thing that needs to happen is for the existing evidence to be taken seriously. Won’t you please change the official policy, which, since the Robertson Panel, in 1953, has been to ridicule such things, and instead make a serious examination of what we already know? If there’s one chance in a million that it would produce such a massive result, aren’t we fools not to pursue that chance?

When the full film website gets up, this blog will be part of it, and I’d like this to be a dialogue. I usually think there’s so much smarter thinking than is popularly in play. Like today, at that town meeting, Obama laughing at the suggestion to think about marijuana laws. Along with UFOs, it’s part of the world that is to come, where it’s re-think or else.

When I read things like If We Are in the Death Spiral of Capitalism, Can We Start Using the “S” Word? , I want to jump out of my skin. Yes, yes, yes, it’s an intelligent appraisal of the difficulties we are in. No argument with this:

We seem to have entered the death spiral where rising unemployment leads to reduced consumption and hence to greater unemployment. Any schadenfreude we might be tempted to feel as executives lose their corporate jets and the erstwhile Masters of the Universe wipe egg from their faces is quickly dashed by the ever more vivid suffering around us. Food pantries and shelters can no longer keep up with the demand; millions face old age without pensions and with their savings gutted; we personally are consumed with anxiety about the future that awaits our children and grandchildren.

And it has a suggestion about how the world might be reorganized. But are there any laws to pass, or stimuli to give out, or businesses to shore up or to let fail that will get us to another reality?

It makes me crazy that we aren’t talking about what’s more important than any action to take, which is how to think. Although it may not have been uttered by Einstein, whoever said you can’t solve problems at the level of consciousness that created them was a wise cookie. We argue about actions to take, while I whisper, “Pay attention to the crop circles.”

Look, if we were to ascertain beyond a shadow of a doubt there is other intelligence besides our own, it would produce the biggest change in our thinking in centuries. In fact, since Copernicus and Galileo, who removed Earth from being the center of the universe. That removal from supremacy reordered human thought. A hierarchical world, with kings on the top, which went along with Earth as supreme, no longer could hold sway.

If we were to discover extra-terrestrial life, it would show that we are not intellectually unique in the galaxy. Man has a tendency to think he’s very special. We consider ourselves morally, culturally, and intellectually unique. But if we were to find a signal from another star system, another thinking being, we would know that none of that is true. A connection with another intelligence would be the first bridging across four billion years of independent life in evolution. It would be the end of Earth’s cultural isolation in a galaxy and a universe surely containing millions of other civilizations. It would be without doubt the greatest discovery in the history of humankind. – Paul Horowitz, Project Director, Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

So, think about how it would be if we got it that not only isn’t Earth the central stellar body, but that humanity isn’t the only brainy species. It’s one thing where otherness is just in science fiction, but, seriously, just think about what would happen if science fiction became science fact. And I’m not talking about invasion, but everything staying the same except our awareness. Do you think that it soon would be yesterday’s news? Never. We would wonder, we would probe, we would see how we might answer back, and we all would be in it together — one humanity in relation to that otherness. Can’t you see that’s just the way we need to see ourselves to deal with threats to us that are global now?

If ‘the other’ wanted to take over, it had a gazillion years to do that. Galactic wars are waged in science fiction, and in fact we haven’t been harmed by anything from off planet. And, if we made real inquiry into what’s going on, we would not be meeting strange creatures coming out of metallic craft, saying, “Take me to your leader.” We would be just like we are, only we would have had a realization.

So, instead of continuing to marginalize what could be coming from elsewhere, we should be opening our eyes to see what we’ve been titillated by. We are so clever and so resourceful that if there were real interest, where the brightest minds were puzzling it out, we would have answers. I know it about the crop circles, where if you take plant material and soil samples from a ‘genuine’ circle into a science lab, you ascertain that it has undergone inexplicable changes. What little money there’s been for such research has found that to be the case, and, although credible scientific papers attest to such changes, the world isn’t paying attention.

Why? Even if there were an infinitesimal chance to make a breakthrough discovery that could be of such value to us, why not look into that? It would cost very little to investigate the origin of the circles, not to mention that we could get some interesting info about what has been done to throw us off track. Why would hoaxers go out, night after night, year after year, in fields all over the world, for absolutely no recognition and presumably no money? It defies human nature, not to mention human capacities. See Why Real Crop Circles Can’t be Hoaxed.

In 1952, the Robertson Panel was convened by the CIA to look into the buzz going on about UFO sightings. It set official government policy, which still is in place, to use the media to ridicule and debunk. It’s time for that policy to be reconsidered. What we would discover could save civilization.

Suzanne Taylor
Producer/Director What on Earth…Inside the crop circle mystery.

A CALL FOR NEW ATTENTION

                                                                 

We love our science fiction, but we titter when we talk about UFOs. People go into modes of rebuttal rather than accepting information as reportage. Have you been watching Larry King of late? He's done two programs about UFOs in the last two weeks, where government and military officials gave testimonials to their astonishing experiences, but, de rigueur, a member of the Skeptic's Society has been there to shoot them down.

What I'd like to draw attention to, which never gets discussed, is how valuable it would be if extraterrestrials turned out to be the real deal. Instead of mocking all the reports, if we had our heads o­n straight we'd be investigating them. Getting heads o­n straight is the imperative of our time. How else can we get beyond our dualistic, 'us or them' thinking, where opposition is the norm?
 
The reality of another intelligence would be the biggest news since Galileo. When we found out Earth wasn't the center of the solar system, let alone not the center of the universe, we were freed from a worldview in which our planet dominated. Our social order then couldn't hold, and, in a less than lordly light, kings gave way to democracies and we got the science that defines our modern world.
With problems being global now, in order to keep our world habitable we need another new social order. It is imperative that we get past our worldview of scientific materialism, which creates an 'us or them' world in which we fight over goods and whoever has the most toys wins. We need to transcend factional behavior that stretches the disparity between the rich and the poor to where revolutions take place, and keeps us resorting to war to resolve conflicts.
A next leap would come if we knew there was other intelligent life. In relating to what's not ourselves, we would be o­ne humanity, and we would have the lid off the smallness in which we gun for o­ne another. It is reasonable that we can get to this awareness via the crop circle phenomenon, where the evidence of visitation is available to see and to study. In fact, the science that has been done o­n the phenomenon, and written up in peer reviewed pieces in science journals, concludes that something beyond our reality is delivering the circles to us. While what delivers the glyphs will remain a mystery, knowing that something is watching us and signaling us is enough — it's that they are, not who they are that's important.

Our government, o­n the premise that people would panic if they knew something beyond our control was engaging us, put a lid o­n investigating what could be other intelligences. See the REPORT OF SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY PANEL o­n UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS CONVENED BY OFFICE OF SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE, CIA January 14 – 18, 1953, for long-classified info o­n a meeting that set government policy, which was to ridicule rather than investigate UFOs. However, after many years of delivering non-threatening beauty, we could rest easy in the awareness that if the circles come from elsewhere there isn't going to be an invasion.

Just knowing we aren't alone would be a huge deal. However, if we established that, there could be more. The technology of  'the other' is more advanced than ours, which we can conclude since they are visiting us and not the other way around, and what they are capable of might help us solve our great environmental problems, like oil depletion and global warming, that threaten our survival.
 
So why do our visitors make crop circles instead of doing things that would be helpful to us? Maybe there needs to be a receptivity for us to get more from them. If sending circles is their hello, it makes sense to me that we'd need to respond for them to go further. I see them patiently awaiting our aha, where we get it that they are out there. Then, we'd own that awareness. We could meet them, then, rather than being dominated or subjugated by them, which is an old sort of science fiction scenario.
 
Human begins have it in our psyches that we hate being conned — a fear that flourishes in the right and wrong world. But a higher order, that can subsume that o­ne, is the realm of mystery. This cosmos is so awesome, where we continually pierce more of its veils, that some openness to what we don't know is good for us. It keeps us dreaming, a state in which new and better realities could be ushered in. Here's what my favorite cosmologist, physicist Brian Swimme, has to say about that, in reflections he made after seeing my almost finished documentary, WALKING IN CIRCLES:
Albert Einstein o­nce remarked that for the human there is no more powerful feeling than that of the “mysterious.” In fact, he was convinced this feeling for the mysterious was the cradle for all works of science, art, and religion. In light of Einstein's conviction, o­ne might ask: “What is the opposite of a feeling for the mysterious?” The opposite would be the sense that o­ne understands it all. The opposite would be the feeling that o­ne is in possession of a system that explains all the phenomena in the universe. For such a person, the universe loses its appeal for it becomes something we don't really need to pay attention to. The universe becomes an exemplification of a theory that o­ne has already understood. No real surprises are possible, o­nly the working out of a logical system through time. When a feeling for the mysterious is lost, o­ne become s vulnerable to the various fundamentalisms plaguing our planet, each o­ne with its passionate certainty that it has all the answers while every other system is just superstition.
In moments of stress and breakdown, there is a powerful drive in us to acquire answers and explanations. Certainly in our own time when we are dismantling ecosystems around the planet and deconstructing the stable climate upon which our civilization is based, we feel a deep need to know what is real and what is good and how to proceed. This need can become so great we are liable to latch o­nto o­ne of these simplistic pseudo-explanations just to quell the feelings of fear and doom surfacing in us. “Walking in Circles” does not provide any such simplistic explanations. This restraint is o­ne of its greatest achievements. By insisting that the Crop Circles are beyond any easy explanation, “Walking in Circles” enables us to make peace with living in the ambiguity of not knowing. This ability to live with ambiguity is related to a sense for the mysterious and together these two may be the most important factors for deep creativity to take place. At the very least, we need to realize that an embrace of ambiguity is a form of humility when confronted by the magnificent complexity of nature.

One of the great benefits of viewing WALKING IN CIRCLES is the feeling o­ne can get of wading into the mysterious. Through its balanced and wide-open approach to the phenomena of crop circles, the film has the power to ease us out of some of the prior certainties we might have had. WALKING IN CIRCLES explores and celebrates the fact of the existence of these designs. And as we are guided into this reflection, we find ourselves considering new ideas about the nature of our universe. We begin to imagine that things might be different than we thought. We might even begin to release ourselves from some of the tired explanations lodged into our minds by the media. But most important of all, as we view the film we might even begin to feel stunned by the simple fact that here we are in the midst of this overwhelming mystery, the universe.
Since my film isn't finished, there's no viewing to be had yet. (Here's a URL I gave before to an 11-minute promo for it: http://www.mightycompanions.org/cropcircles/trailer/cc.html. The name has changed and may change again before the film comes out. Suggestions are welcome.) However, the season for crop circles is underway and it looks like a sensational o­ne in England. To see them all for yourselves, there's a site that tracks them as they come in.  See http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2008/2008.html for what's arrived so far.

Continue reading

Come on-a my film!!!!

Every year, Chet Snow produces an outstanding conference about crop circles and other mysteries of our time. This o­ne will be November 16-18, in Tempe, Arizona. Joy of joys, they are having the very first showing of my movie, which will just have emerged from post-production. Several of the people featured in the movie are speakers at the conference, so if you come you will have a chance to mingle with movie stars!!

Both the accommodations and the conference are very reasonable as things go these days. The conference is held at a lovely Embassy all suites hotel, where you get two separate rooms and a great breakfast for little more than a single person's fee, and there's free shuttle service from the nearby Phoenix airport.

You list-members are a rare bunch, so whomever attends should enjoy meeting the others. I'll be doing some hosting in my suite, and if you are coming let me know and I'll put you in my loop. And if you have a mind to pass along this information, the conference producer would be grateful.

Here's an email from him that was just sent to a US crop circle listserve, which anybody interested in the circles might want to join.

From: Wdestiny44@aol.com [

mailto:Wdestiny44@aol.com]
Subject: New CC Film to Preview at “Shh! It's A Secret Conference” Nov 18th, Tempe, AZ

Dr. Chet Snow and Suzanne Taylor are happy to announce that o­n Sunday, November 18, 2007, the “Shh! It's A Secret! Not o­n the 6 O'Clock News” Conference in Tempe, Arizona, offers the FIRST PREVIEW SHOWING of:

“Walking in Circles” — Inside o­ne of the greatest mysteries of our time

          with Producer-Director, Suzanne Taylor

Longtime Los Angeles activist, Suzanne Taylor, was Executive Producer of the 2002 film, “CROP CIRCLES: Quest for Truth.” Now, she presents “Walking in Circles,” a new feature-length documentary o­n crop circles, this time as both Producer and Director. This film chronicles Suzanne's interactions in England with members of the lively community of visionary artists, scientists, philosophers, geometers and farmers who have been profoundly touched by the crop circle phenomenon. Replete with stunning imagery, it deals with how our scientific materialistic world view hampers serious investigation of this great mystery of our time, and how acknowledging that the circles come from another intelligence could help us to behave as o­ne people in relation to that otherness.

This mind-bending film points to how learning to think as o­ne planet, where we cherish Earth instead of plundering it, could help us solve many of today's challenges and build a brighter future.

We are proud to present a FIRST PREVIEW of what promises to be o­ne of the most talked-about films of 2008.

Chet Snow's Tempe, Arizona Conference o­n November 16-19, 2007, includes presentations by Barbara Marciniak, Daniel Pinchbeck, Andrew Collins, Linda Moulton Howe, Dr. Nick Begich, Bert Janssen, Jim Marrs and other internationally-acclaimed speakers. “It's Time for Truth!” and ” No More Secrets!” are the weekend's mottos. For full details, see

http://chetsnow.com/signs.html.
Continue reading